Critical Approaches to Gender and 21st Century Pop Music

Hanson argues that at this point in pop music, artists like Miley have nothing to rebel against to make them artistic -- Miley has to go full circle and just make sex, music, and performance ugly.

A study of visits to online news stories found that Americans were 12 times as likely to visit an article about Miley Cyrus than Syria. This trend is despite news venues publishing 2.4 articles about Syria for every article about Cyrus.

Camille Paglia argues that the problem with Cyrus's performance wasn't that it was "disgusting," but rather that it was unsexy ("atrocious"), and that subversion and sexual liberation need limits and can't rely just on shock.

I might add that I think Paglia is largely right, but then again, wrong: Isn't she mis-identifying Cyrus? Cyrus was out for shock, not sexual liberation (in my reading). She's not trying to be the next Madonna. (If you read other Paglia arguments, a recurring theme is: "This new artist isn't Madonna.")

Camille Pagila is at it again! Although our class discussion is currently focused on Lady Gaga, I found this article Pagila wrote about Miley Cyrus interesting. Pagila does mention the focus on sex in the music industry and credits Madonna as the executive of such an image, in the most positive way possible. Pagila described Gaga as the striking end of sex and gender. Here, Pagila claims that pop music/culture itself is on the exponential decline. Don't forget to read the comments, they're quite amusing, actually!

1990s grunge/rock/punk singer Courtney Love calls Katy Perry boring, but is excited by Miley Cyrus, calling her a sexy hillbilly. She also provides a dig toward Robin Thicke.

Miley Cyrus's new video, "Wrecking Ball," is the most viewed video on Vimeo within its first 24 hours.

This tumblr blog post contains images of various female artists who have appeared nude in their videos, noting the reaction to Miley Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball" has been different than to other artists' nudity, who have been called "artistic," "beautiful," "cute," and "sexy," while Cyrus gets shamed as "slutty."

This is a parody of "Blurred Lines" mocking Amanda Bynes, performed by three drag queens (Detox, Willam Belli, and Vicky Vox).

Comic about people's reaction w/ Miley Cyrus vs. Robin Thicke

In this video, Jessie J sings about doing things like a "dude" and not caring about how people think.

This is an article on how the University of Edinburgh has decided to ban Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines from all Student Buildings because it promotes an unhealthy attitude towards sex and consent

Very interesting. I wonder what folks in the class think about this being banned?

An argument that Miley Cryus's VMA performance was (though unintentionally) a minstrel show that echoes the minstrelsy of the 19th century, especially performances of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This is a heritage that we carry with us from theatre, and plays out in hollywood, such as "Orange Is the New Black" character Crazy Eyes.